EAGER: FEW: Life cycle comparison of water, energy, nutrient, and carbon requirements of urban and conventional food production strategies

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

A variety of urban food production strategies have been proposed to reduce energy required to provide food to urban residents, reduce flooding, increase water reuse, increase biodiversity in cities, improve supplies of healthy fresh food to urban residents, and stimulate economic development. However, the water, nutrient, and energy requirements of urban food production have not been determined, and the resulting impacts on flooding and water quality have not been documented. To meet these needs, this project will instrument and monitor three urban agriculture demonstration sites in the Chicago area, and use the resulting data to assess the effects of alternative urban food production strategies on water, energy, and nutrients in cities. The project will 1) develop a general techno-economic life-cycle modeling framework for urban food systems, 2) monitor water, energy, nutrient, and carbon balances in urban food production, 3) develop physically-based models for hydrologic and biogeochemical dynamics at these sites, and 4) integrate these data and process models into the techno-economic model in order to compare whole-lifecycle energy, water, nutrient, and carbon impacts of alternative urban food production strategies relative to each other and to conventional production of the same crops. Very little data are available to quantify the water, energy, nutrient, and carbon requirements and impacts of urban food production. The projectwill yield novel data enabling parameterization of both process-based and techno-economic models for three alternative urban food production strategies. The project will be conducted in collaboration with the Chicago Botanic Garden through the Windy City Harvest program (WCH). This collaboration will engage apporoximately 200 students (grades 9-14) and community members per year in project science activities, and enable direct use of project results to improve design and operation of urban food production facilities. The project will also involve a student-science effort at Northwestern University, thereby engaging approximately 700 undergraduate students per year to analyze metals concentrations in samples obtained from WCH sites. Overall, the project will provide capability to estimate the magnitude of potential impacts that could be achieved by deploying urban food production at regional scales, along with information needed to design these production systems and optimize their location within urban landscapes, and engage approximately 2,000 students and community members in analysis and development of sustainable urban food production.